Deployment of over 4,000 units and record data traffic highlight technology’s central role in election reporting

LiveU’s IP-video technology played a pivotal role in the 2024 US Presidential Election, facilitating extensive on-the-ground reporting and real-time coverage across multiple platforms. During the 48-hour Election Day period, LiveU’s EcoSystem was deployed at full capacity, supporting a surge in live video traffic and setting new benchmarks for both field equipment and cloud-based solutions.

The company deployed more than 4,000 field units, marking the largest fleet of LiveU encoders ever mobilized for a single event, nearly doubling the number of units used during the 2020 election. Over 925 customers from 56 countries contributed to this effort, transmitting more than 40TB of data and broadcasting nearly 40,000 hours of live content – equivalent to over four and a half years of continuous coverage.

LiveU’s LU800 units were used extensively for both remote (REMI) and on-site productions across the US, delivering live feeds to control rooms domestically and internationally, including regions like Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific. These field units supported the coverage of critical election moments, from voter reactions to campaign speeches.

The cloud-native IP-video distribution platform, LiveU Matrix, was a key component of the operation, handling the distribution of over 23,000 hours of live feeds and facilitating the sharing of 7,500 separate feeds, as the company signaled. This marked almost double the amount of content distributed compared to the 2020 election. LiveU Matrix allowed broadcasters to exchange high-quality, low-latency live video feeds, enhancing collaboration among news outlets and expanding coverage from key battleground states to campaign headquarters.

For the first time during a major event, LiveU Ingest played an integral role in the content production process. This story-centric solution enabled broadcasters to automatically record live feeds and tag them with metadata for easy integration into Media Asset Management (MAM) systems. Over 6,500 recordings and more than 4,000 hours of content were captured during the Election Day period, with cross-station content visibility making it easier for stations to access and share each other’s content. This streamlined workflow allowed faster processing of video in the field, ensuring that every moment was captured and ready for broadcast.

LiveU’s Mobile Data service also contributed to the coverage, providing reliable connectivity at key campaign locations. The service, combined with LAN access, utilized LiveU’s Reliable Transport (LRT™) protocol to ensure optimal video performance and network resiliency.

Brian Tully, Senior Vice President of Sales at LiveU, commented on the scale of the deployment: “This election created an unprecedented amount of action, excitement, and interest worldwide, with LiveU’s EcoSystem at the heart of the coverage. A vast amount of video traffic flowed through every stage – from the on-location encoders to the production control rooms. It was truly incredible to see all the election content created, produced, and shared using our technology.”

LiveU’s support infrastructure was also fully mobilized for the event. The company established a dedicated Election Day taskforce to provide 24/7 customer support, with engineers deployed on-site at key candidate headquarters. In addition, LiveU’s renowned global support services were enhanced with over 20 staff members supporting international customers throughout the election day period.

Tully added, “Our customers knew they could count on us at every moment, and the customer enablement provided before Election Day for LiveU Ingest proved invaluable. The scale of LiveU’s support was at the highest level, not only with our on-the-ground support but also with our dedicated Command Center, which provided real-time assistance to our global customer base for over 15 hours straight.”

Earlier in the election cycle, LiveU also offered customers the option to use LiveU Private Connectivity at major political events like the Republican National Convention (RNC) and the Democratic National Convention (DNC). This service, which provides dedicated 5G connectivity for uncontested bandwidth, will also be available for coverage of the inauguration.

According to the company’s statements, this milestone in live election coverage highlights LiveU’s continuing role in enabling news organizations to meet the increasing demands of high-quality, real-time video distribution across diverse platforms and regions.